December 23, 2005

Foxy Brown Sticks Tongue Out at Judge, Gets Handcuffed in Court

Rapper Foxy Brown was handcuffed, threatened with jail and made to apologize Friday after she opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue in the direction of a judge who had asked her to stop chewing gum...

Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Melissa Jackson told Brown that she was showing disrespect to the court and had previously been "making faces" at the judge. "I don't like her attitude," Jackson told Brown's lawyer Joseph Fleming.

Brown, 25, denied she was chewing gum, but the judge said she believed she was. At that, Brown opened her mouth and wagged her tongue as if to show her mouth was empty. Jackson ordered the rapper handcuffed to the defendants' bench along a courtroom wall.

While Brown was being handcuffed, a ruckus erupted in which she and a female court officer yelled at each other. Brown shouted that the numerous bracelets and bangles on her left wrist "are in the way," and, Jackson said, Brown struck the officer.

The judge gave Brown two chances to apologize. After the first, Fleming seemed to be telling Jackson that his client didn't feel she had anything to apologize for.

The judge told the lawyer to go back and explain to his client that without the apology, she would find Brown in contempt of court. A contempt finding would expose Brown to 30 days in jail and a $1,000 fine, Jackson said.

After a second meeting on the defendants' bench, the rapper, both hands cuffed behind her back, appeared before the judge and said, "I apologize for my actions..."